This article was provided by the Ontario Mining Association (OMA), an organization that was established in 1920 to represent the mining industry of the province.
For the first half of 2008, the Ontario mining industry´s safety performance was holding steady keeping the sector among the three safest industries in Ontario. For the first six months of 2008, the mining industry had a lost time injury rate of 0.6 per 200,000 hours worked, which is the same as the first six months of 2007. The total medical injury frequency for the first six months of 2008, at 7.4 per 200,000 hours worked, is up slightly from the rate of 6.7 for the January to June 2007 period. The severity of injuries remains virtually the same at 16 days for the first half of 2008, compared with 15 days for the first half of 2007.
According to numbers from the Mines and Aggregates Safety and Health Association (MASHA), the mining sector´s safety prevention organization, and similar organizations representing other industries, mining´s safety record would not quite match, but be in line with, the top performing electrical and education sectors. Mining´s safety performance, however, would rank ahead of sectors such as manufacturing, services, forestry, construction, health care, municipal workers, farming and transportation.
The Ontario mining industry´s lost time injury rate for 2007 was 0.8 per 200,000 hours worked. The industry has been steadily improving over the decades on this incident frequency, which stood at 4.7 in 1985. Credit for these stronger safety performances resides on the shoulders of every individual who works in the industry. These statistics are moving in the right direction because of the personal diligence on the safety front and concern for oneself and his and her colleagues. There are a number of initiatives and institutions supporting these gains.